Beth. yes, when you reflect on something, it is already
past. If you want to reproduce it, then as a human being you
will have to analyse it.
The trade of being an artist is the capacity to synthesise
the elements and give you something of the ineffable. But I
love that quote you have from Vygotsky, where he claims that
art not only excites the experience in the reader, but also
/explains/ it. I think that is actually setting a high
standard for art. Dickens did not explain Dickensian London,
but he represented it so faithfully.

But when we reflect on some things it is hard to do so
without loosing the whole entirely in the process of
reflection.

Jay said in a chain recently, in response to a related
question, something about having an artist on every
research team. I have been thinking about this. If the
"artist, in comparison with his fellows, is one who is not
only especially gifted in powers of execution but in
unusual sensitivity to the qualities of things" then this
is who we need to tell us which property is the one that
can characterize the experience as a whole.

No? Am I missing something in what you just wrote? The
unity is prior but how to study the object if this unity
is its essence? -- sort of like the empty space in the
bowl being the bowl, so when you study the bowl itself
then you miss the whole point.

I am thinking of these two quotes, although maybe I am
conflating things?:

"Its nature and import can be expressed only by art,
because there is a unity of experience that can be
expressed only as an experience." and

“Few understand why it is imperative not only to have the
effect of art take shape and excite the reader or
spectator but also to explain art, /and to explain it in
such a way that the explanation does not kill the
emotion/.” -- p. 254, Vygotsky (1971)

I am really meaning this question in a very practical way,
thinking of how I am always speaking to preschool teachers
who describe their students and the activities with these
students with such art, and how I am getting better at
creating classroom spaces that support this description --
but am still not clear about how to consistently create
spaces in my papers for similar forms of representation
and reflection.

This question also comes from reading the Alfredo and Rolf
paper, and thinking about Leigh Star's work.

No, no, Beth. As Dewey says:
"This unity is neither emotional, practical, nor
intellectual, for these terms name distinctions
that reflection can make within it. In
discourse//about//an experience, we must make use
of these adjectives of interpretation. In going
over an experience in mind//after/ /its
occurrence, we may find that one property rather
than another was sufficiently dominant so that it
characterizes the experience as a whole."
Isn't this beautiful scientific prose! We make these
distinction when we *reflect* on an experience. And
perhaps we include the experience in our
autobiography, act it out on the stage, analyse it
scientifically, all of which presupposes analysis and
synthesis. But it is important to recognise that the
unity is prior. It is not only a unity of emotion and
cognition (for example) but also of attention and will
- and any other categories you abstract from an
experience.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
<http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
On 17/07/2015 3:00 PM, Beth Ferholt wrote:

Or reproducing the part that represents the whole?
Like a fractal? I think it is the similarity across

scales that makes an experience proleptic, or gives
that 'bliss conferred at the beginning of the road to
redemption" that Vasilyuk refers to. You have an
experience on several timescales and so a sense of
deja-vu is central to having an experience. This is
what I am thinking about after reading both the paper
of Dewey's and your recent piece on perezhivanie,
Andy, although I am picking up on a small piece of
the last email in this chain -- : If something is
only itself in its whole then you can't study it, is
what is bothering me. Beth
On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 11:22 PM, Andy Blunden
<ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
Not "getting at something", Michael. Just
pursuing this question you raised about Dewey's
saying that the aesthetic quality of medieval
buildings arises from their not being "planned"
like buildings are nowadays. He goes on to say
"Every work of art follows the plan of, and
pattern of, a complete experience." The puzzle he
is raising here is the completeness of an
experience which gives it its aesthetic quality,
and this cannot be created by assembling together
parts in the way a modern building is planned. An
experience - the kind of thing which sticks in
your mind - is an original or prior unity, not a
combination, and this is what gives a work of art
that ineffable quality, something which can only
be transmitted by reproducing that whole of an
experience.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
<http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
On 17/07/2015 2:32 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
Andy,
I'm still not sure about your question. Did
I set out to have that experience, that
morning...no, I don't think so (it was a long
time ago, but I'm pretty sure no). Could I
have just treated it as an indiscriminate
activity, probably, I had done so before.
But I am guessing you're getting a something
here Andy?
Michael
-----Original Message-----
From:
xmca-l-bounces+glassman.13=osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
<mailto:osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>
[mailto:xmca-l-bounces+glassman.13
<mailto:xmca-l-bounces%2Bglassman.13>=osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
<mailto:osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>] On Behalf
Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 12:21 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
YOu said: "... But that time I had the
experience with the paintings..."
I mean that was an experience. Did you set
out that morning to have that experience?
RE, your question: "what does he mean when he
says you can't do things indiscriminately and
have vital experience, but you also can't
plan things?"
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
<http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
On 17/07/2015 2:09 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
Well I'm not sure I understand your
question Andy, but perhaps it has
something to do with my grandfather's
favorite saying (translated from
Yiddish),
Man plans, God laughs.
Michael
-----Original Message-----
From:
xmca-l-bounces+mglassman=ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
<mailto:ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>
[mailto:xmca-l-bounces+mglassman
<mailto:xmca-l-bounces%2Bmglassman>=ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
<mailto:ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>]
On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 12:04 PM
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
So Michael, there was just that one
occasion, in all your museum-going, when
you had an experience. Was that planned?
(I don't mean to say you haven't had a
number of such experiences,
Michael ... just some number actually)
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
<http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
On 17/07/2015 1:19 AM, Glassman, Michael
wrote:
Hi Larry and all,
I think this is one of the most
complex aspects of experience, what
does he mean when he says you can't
do things indiscriminately and have
vital experience, but you also can't
plan things? I have discussed
(argued) about this a lot with my
students. I have especially seen him
raise this point in at least two of
his great works, Democracy and
Education and Experience and Nature -
and again of course in Art as
Experience (notice he is not saying
how Art enters into experience but
how art is experience - I have come
to notice these little things more
and more in his writing).
The difficulty we have, at least in
the United States because of the
dominance of the idea of
meta-cognition, is that we too often
translate what individuals are
bringing in to experience to organize
it as a form of meta-cognition. It
is kind of possible to make that
interpretation from Democracy and
Education, although what I think he
is doing more is arguing against
misinterpretations of his work as
random, child centered activities. I
think he is clearer in Experience and
Nature that we bring in who we are at
the moment into the activity, and use
who we are (I don't want to say
identity) as an organizing principle
for what we do. It is perhaps one of
the places where Dewey and Vygotsky
are close. Perhaps I can use the
same Jackson Pollock example. The
first few times I saw his paintings I
was trying to "apprecitate" them
because I was told that was the best
way to experience them. Dewey says
no vital experience there because my
activities become stilted and artificia
l. Sometimes I went through the
museum and just looked at pictures,
one to the other. No vital
experience there, just random
threads. But that time I had the
experience with the paintings I was
allowing who I was, what had been
built up in the trajectory of my life
to enter into my experience with the
painting, making it a vital
experience. I think Dewey makes the
argument in Experience and Nature
that it is not just the experience
the moment before, but the
experiences leading to that
experience, the context of my life,
of my parent's life, of a long line
of historical experiences.
Anyway, my take.
Michael
-